Their daytime gigs are disparate as they themselves are: One works in automotive, another in gas and equipment and the third for an ad agency. But by night, the three guys who make up Dingo Sanctuary, one of the hardest working local bands in West Texas, come together with unity and purpose to, in their words, rock your socks off.

Dingo Sanctuary - lead singer/guitarist Tim Kreitz, drummer Britt Harper and bassist Roger Albaugh - play Hooters in Odessa next Thursday and the Ice House in Midland, June 26-27. Like many bands nowadays, they help spread their message and their concert appearances using new media.

Kreitz said the band has over 1,000 friends on MySpace, about 400 on Facebook and even more on ReverbNation.

"Had it not been for the Internet, we may not have received much attention. I embrace it. I love it," said Kreitz, a producer with Dominey and Etheridge. "For a three piece band from West Texas, we'll take that."

Kreitz says the name Dingo Sanctuary is similar to a bird sanctuary, but for the wild dogs that inhabit Australia; the band felt it was unique enough and reflective of its mix of personality and sound. With heavy doses of both original and cover material, Kreitz, Harper and Albaugh attempt to bring a today feel to both the classics and the new sound. Clapton, Hendrix, the Allman Brothers and ZZ Top are a sampling of what you'll hear when you experience Dingo Sanctuary, in fact Kreitz's reading of "Waitin' for the Bus," the ZZ Top classic, sounds eerily similar to Billy Gibbons.

"Being in my late 30s now, when I hear great music all I hear is the old music that it was inspired by," Kreitz says with Parker and Albaugh nodding in agreement. "I was standing in a coffee shop recently and someone who knew me as a musician came up and asked me if we were going to include any Coldplay in our show, and I said probably not, honestly. Everything they do is based on something a previous artist did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. This young guy I was talking to couldn't quite wrap himself around that."

Today's music, Albaugh said, has become diluted and "dumbed down to the extent that my ear is drawn back into the 1970s and guitar rock," he said.

The band members in Dingo Sanctuary say it's easy to tell when we're in a down economy: not as many people want to go out and have fun on the weekend. Local musicians must continually fight a market that hasn't necessarily embraced the independent music scene, a battle that is constantly being fought and many times won. If people support local music by showing up and listening to it, they're often won over by the quality of what they hear and want to go back again and again. But it's getting people there in the first place that might be the hardest part.

"Come out and support local music," Harper said. "We need support. (The local music scene) has almost dried up. People just need to come out and have fun."

Editor's Note: Part one in a four-part series on local bands. This week: Dingo Sanctuary. Next week: The Shades.